Michael Kownacky

We’re featuring an American opera on this week’s Sunday Opera (3/16 3:00 p.m.) in Lori Laitman’s 2016 treatment of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter” featuring a libretto by David Mason. Hawthorne’s 1850 novel is a moral allegory centering on Hester Prynne’s affair with the Reverend Dimmesdale, the birth of her illegitimate daughter, Pearl, and her strength and determination to make a life for them in the face of hatred and prejudice.

The theme for this week’s Dress Circle (3/16 7:00 p.m.) came about as we were researching ideas for future programs. We noticed that almost all musicals feature songs where someone is leaving, telling someone else to leave, hinting someone else should leave, or is caught between leaving and staying. We came up with a list long enough to do several programs, so we thought we’d start this week with songs “Saying Goodbye or Not.”

Join us for an afternoon of the music of Richard Strauss on this week’s Sunday Opera (3/9 3:00 p.m.) and his opera completed in 1940, “Die Liebe der Danae” (“The Love of Danae”). The opera is in three acts with the final act containing what Strauss considered to be some of his finest music.

In the past, we’ve “marched” into March, but we’ve decided to “Parade into March” on this week’s Dress Circle (3/9 7:00 p.m.) with songs from a variety of musicals from stage and screen. We’ve done a program of parades before, but this time, the titles must contain the word “parade.”

“La Juive,” a tragic tale of religious intolerance by Fromental Halevy, will air on this week’s Sunday Opera (3/2 3:00 p.m.). Eugene Scribe wrote the libretto for this opera which became one of the most popular of the 19th century after its premier in Paris on 23 February 1835. It deals with the plight of Jews in Switzerland in the 15th century, particularly Rachel and her adoptive father Eleazar who are persecuted by the Catholic Church and are arrested after it is found that Rachel’s love Samuel is actually a Christian.

Happy March, the month of aquamarines, daffodils, and robins – oh, and quite a few musicals opening in New York, some of which we’ll be featuring on this week’s Dress Circle (3/2 7:00 p.m.). We’ve chosen fourteen musicals for our playlist that spans 125 years of Broadway history this time.

The name Ottorino Respighi probably brings to mind his three “Roman” pieces: Fountains of… (1916), Pines of… (1924), and Roman Festivals (1928). His nine operas are often overlooked, but on this week’s Sunday Opera (2/23 3:00 p.m.), we’re turning to one of his lush “late-Romantic” pieces that was completed in 1914 but not premiered until 2004 because of the intervention of the First World War. The work is “Marie Victoire” and follows the life of title character who narrowly escapes execution during the French Revolution only to have to fight for the life of her falsely accused husband.

Over the years, we’ve often said that pieces were some of our “favorites,” and we do have many. We tried to wrangle them into a manageable size, but we still had enough for several programs. With this in mind, this week’s Dress Circle (2/23 7:00 p.m.) will look at some of our favorite overtures and opening numbers because we had far fewer of those than we did individual songs.

Because of a technical glitch, last month’s presentation of Tchaikovsky’s rarely performed opera “The Enchantress” ended before the final act and supplementary pieces could air. Because many of you let us know that you wanted to hear the end of the opera, we’re re-airing it on this week’s Sunday Opera. Enjoy!

41 years ago on a Thursday evening, the first presentation of The Dress Circle aired, and on this week’s program (2/16 7:00 p.m.), we’re going to celebrate that inauspicious beginning with songs from some of the musicals that were playing around the time our program began.